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I wanted to open my eyes to look at Gideon for the last time, but I couldn’t do it.
“I love you, Gwenny. Please don’t leave me,” said Gideon. That was the last thing I heard before a great void swallowed me up.
All kinds of inanimate items and materials can be transported through space in both directions without any problems. However, at the moment when an item is transported, it must not be in contact with anything or anyone, apart from the time traveler who is carrying it.
The largest object so far moved through time was a refectory table twelve feet long, taken from the year 1805 by the de Villiers twins in 1900 and back again (see Volume 4, Chapter 3, “Experiments and Empirical Investigations,” pp. 188 ff.). No plants or parts of plants, and no living creatures of any kind, can be transported, since time travel would destroy or entirely dissolve their cell structure, as many experiments on algae, various seedlings, slipper animalcules, woodlice, and mice have shown (again, see Volume 4, Chapter 3, “Experiments and Empirical Investigations,” pp. 194 ff.).
The transportation of any items, other than under supervision or for experimental purposes, is strictly forbidden.
FROM THE CHRONICLES OF THE GUARDIANS,
VOLUME 2: GENERAL LAWS OF TIME TRAVEL
TEN
“SHE LOOKS to me strangely familiar,” I heard someone say. There was no mistaking James’s plummy tone of voice.
“Of course she does, bonehead,” replied another voice that could only belong to Xemerius. “It’s Gwyneth, but wearing a wig and minus her school uniform.”
And now other sounds and agitated voices began getting through to me. It was like a radio with the volume slowly being turned up. I was still lying on my back, or maybe I was lying on my back again. The terrible weight on my breast had gone away, and so had the dull pain deep inside me. Was I a ghost like James now?
Someone cut my bodice open and ripped it apart, with an ugly tearing noise.
“He got her aorta,” I heard Gideon saying desperately. “I tried to stop the flow of blood, but … but it went on too long.”
Cool hands were feeling my upper body and touched a painful spot under my rib cage. Then Dr. White said, sounding relieved, “It’s only a superficial cut! Good heavens, what a fright you gave me!”
“What? But that can’t be so. She—”
“The sword only scratched her skin. See that? Madame Rossini’s corset has obviously done good service. Aorta abdominalis—good God, Gideon, what on earth do they teach you in medical school? For a moment, I really believed you.” Dr. White’s fingers were pressing against my throat. “And her pulse is strong.”
“Is she all right?”
“What exactly happened?”
“How could Lord Alastair do such a thing to her?”
Mr. George, Falk de Villiers, and Mr. Whitman all spoke at once. There wasn’t another squeak out of Gideon. I tried to open my eyes, and this time it was easy. I could even sit up without difficulty. I was surrounded by the familiar, brightly painted walls of our school art room in the cellar, and the heads of the assembled Guardians were bending over me. They were all smiling at me, even Mr. Marley.
Only Gideon was staring at me as if he couldn’t believe his eyes. His face was white as a sheet, and I could still see the traces of tears on his cheeks.
Farther away stood James, holding his lace handkerchief to his eyes. “Tell me when it’s safe to look again.”
“Not yet, anyway, or you’ll be struck blind on the spot,” said Xemerius, who was sitting cross-legged at my feet. “Half her bosom is falling out of her bodice.”
Oops. He was right. Feeling embarrassed, I tried to cover myself up with the torn remnants of Madame Rossini’s wonderful dress. Dr. White gently pressed me back on the table where they must have laid me down.
“I’ll have to clean this scratch and put a dressing on it,” he said. “Then I’ll give you a thorough examination. Do you feel pain anywhere?”
I shook my head, only to groan “ouch!” next moment. I had a splitting headache.
Mr. George put his hand on my shoulder from behind me. “Oh, my God, Gwyneth, you gave us quite a fright.” He laughed softly. “That’s what I call a really good faint! When Gideon came back with you in his arms, I seriously thought you could be—”
“Dead,” said Xemerius, finishing the sentence that Mr. George had left tactfully hanging in the air. “To be honest, you certainly looked dead. And that boy was beside himself. Yelling for vein clamps and stammering all sorts of other confused stuff. And shedding buckets of tears. What are you staring at?”
This last remark was for little Robert, who was gazing at Xemerius, fascinated. “He’s so cute. May I stroke him?”
“Not if you want to keep your hand, kid,” said Xemerius. “It’s bad enough having that perfumed coxcomb there thinking I’m a cat all the time.”
